Roads, dams, threat to tiger conservation in Asia

By Lauren Crothers

PHNOM PENH

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has flagged a road project in Myanmar and a proposed dam in Thailand as major threats to the survival of tigers across the Greater Mekong region and its plans to try and double numbers of the big cats over the next six years.

On Wednesday, WWF cited a new report on the impact of infrastructure on tiger habitats as saying that the proposed “Dawei road project across Myanmar’s Dawna Tenasserim Landscape is one such challenge.”

The landscape, which covers 63,239 square kilometers (24,417 square miles) of Thailand and Myanmar, is a mountainous region which provides the main source for regional rivers and watershed systems.

It added that in Thailand, where fewer than 200 tigers remain, “part of their habitat would be destroyed if a proposed dam is built within Mae Wong National Park.”

In Cambodia, tigers are considered functionally extinct.

The last recorded sighting was by camera trap in the Eastern Plains’ Mondolkiri Protected Forest in 2007. In April, the government gave the green light to an ambitious reintroduction plan, which aims to release tigers back into the same area by 2022.

But in June, WWF Cambodia announced a “dramatic decline” of certain species in the Eastern Plains, where prey numbers have to be stable in order to even consider reintroducing tigers.

The organization said that the “alarming” development was attributable to poaching and a low ranger numbers in those areas, as well as illegal weapon use.

In addition to concerns that were raised by WWF about a proposed road and border crossing project through Mondolkiri province last year, Cambodia is also home to a number of controversial dam projects too.

The new report does not mention these.

In a statement, however, WWF Cambodia said that in addition to an anti-logging task force set up in January, the government has “plans for an anti-snaring task force headed by the Ministry of Environment,” which “indicate that the government is taking tiger reintroduction and conservation seriously”.